St. Valentine Can Suck It (A Prelude)

It’s that time of year once again. The time when lovers frolic in the bounties of chocolate and cards and flowers and champagne and red & pink crap and … (hard swallow) … love. Did anyone else just puke in their mouth, swallow it and puke again all over the floor of loneliness? No? Just me? LIARS!

The smell of Hallmark and Red Felt Heart boxes is in the air again. Actually it’s been in the air since January 5th, the

The loving breakfast nobody will ever make for me

exact day that retailers have deemed “Valentine’s Month + 9 days”. The day when the last of the Christmas clearance crap and any New Years residue has been stripped clean of any and all retail shelving. The day when everything in the spectrum of red is shoved down our throat like certain beliefs of certain people who disturb our mornings with their certain pamphlets of certain Hell and damnation of certain non-believers who are certain to close the door in their faces as soon as possible. RED: the color of love and rage and passion and blood and wine and hearts and the devil. Is it any wonder that these things are intertwined like an extension cord that’s been unlovingly thrown and forgotten in a dank garage like my feelings? EXACTLY! Sidenote: (RED) is also the global fund to eliminate AIDS, just in case you were in the giving mood.

It’s also the time of year when a group of other people who aren’t enveloped in rapture and spending and guilt ridden for not getting our significant other any of the aforementioned cliché happy-love gifts, or making reservations at ridiculously overpriced restaurants that serve pink heart shaped salmon over a bed of rose tinted angel hair pasta drizzled with a balsamic passionate reduction and a side of enchantment and devotion. The ones who look at this time of year with disdain and a smidge of empathy

Well hello Friday night

for those poor guys standing in the sea of Valentine’s Day Cards at their local supermarket that have been picked clean like vultures on a fresh zebra carcass. The ones who don’t mind spending just another evening alone with our BFF’s Pat & Vanna and proudly yelling “BLAME IT ON THE RAIN RAIN GO AWAY” before any of the dumbass contestants could ever dream of solving the Before & After puzzle, and sobbing into our plastic champagne flute of Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider.

So go ahead and spend your hard earned after tax money, and have your fun, and touch your partners inappropriately, because on this day, it’s all ok, it’s all expected, and gosh darnit, you paid for it, so you better get the most of it. And hey, you’re all in luck because starting February 15th, it’s the beginning of “St. Patrick’s Month + 3 days”. Somebody please, please, PLEASE “Kiss Me I’m Irish!”